In Which Hermione Declares Revenge
by Hypothetically
Summary: Thanks to an event so small no one remembers, Hermione has decided she hates Harry. And for some reason no one cares about shes going to get revenge.
1. The Return of the Earmuffs

_**Disclaimer:**__ Nothing of the Harry Potter series is of my own invention obviously. (Rolls eyes)_

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**- ****CHAPTER ONE –**

**The Return of Professor Sprout's Cool Earmuffs**

It was a very boring day at Hogwarts. Harry was bored. Ron was bored. Neville's _Mimbulus Mimbletonia_ was bored. There wasn't anything to do. Hermione had already done everyone's homework for the next year and a half or so; even stunning Crookshanks for laughs had lost its sting.

"Harry?" Ron asked, scratching his gingery head and inspecting his finger.

"Yes." Harry sighed, scraping out a pattern on the table with his wand. He considered himself to be quite the artist. So far he had scraped out a couple of dancing leprechauns. He had just started on the pot of gold, but the coins were giving him a bit of trouble.

"Harry are you bored?" Ron continued, inspecting his own wand-scraping picture. It wasn't very good.

"Yes Ron, yes I am. Just like I was bored the last twelve and a half times you asked as well." Harry finished his picture with a flourish and signed his name at the bottom, just as Hermione thumped through the portrait hole, locked in a continuous verbal loop of condemnation.

"Oh Jesus Christ, her again..." Muttered Ron, stabbing savagely his crap drawing of... well we think it was meant to be a cow (it actually resembled a one armed orangutan). However, he missed and speared himself in the leg.

"GOD Harry! I can't leave you alone for TEN SECONDS before you DEFACE school property!" Hermione screeched. Harry promptly conjured up some cheese and stuck it in his ears. Several of the nearest people in the common room got the idea after a few minutes and followed his lead. When she got going she could really screech if you know what I mean. Of course you know what I mean, I just told you. Honestly.

Hermione continued to shriek away in this superfluous manner for quite some time until Professor McGonagall ran into the common room (with some of Professor Sprout's spiffy pink n' fluffy earmuffs on) and overhand bowled a turnip at her. Hermione shut up. Many people rejoiced.

After Professor McGonagall had gone Hermione rubbed the dent the turnip had made in her afro and, trying to retain some dignity, adopted a smug expression and crossed her arms. "So, Harry. I assume you're very sorry for what you've done and you're going to beg to copy my homework." She said in her know-it-all way. Harry took the cheese out of his ears and looked up from the portrait of Hermione he had been scratching into another table. It featured a beaver with large hair and a caption that read "H.G is a big-head and fancies Mouldyshorts."

"No, not really" He said.

She gasped loudly and opened and closed her mouth like a gaping fish. For once in her life she was speechless. Whilst Hermione's face turned every shade of the rainbow, Ron told Harry that he should probably stop calling Voldemort "Mouldyshorts".

"Why?" Asked Harry.

"Because he's all evil and stuff."

"So?"

"So… It's the principle of it!"

"Why?"

"Because he's THE Dark Lord! He's like the scariest guy ever!"

"So? He killed my parents. I'll call him whatever I want."

"Yeah but-"

"Ron. Don't argue with me. I'm an orphan."

"I- Oh, um, right. Sorry."

"Yeah you should be."

"EXCUSE ME????" Harry and Ron almost fell out of their chairs and Ron let out a small embarrassing squeal. Hermione's face had settled on an unflattering shade of puce and was busy yelling at Harry, using such phrases as "little bastard" and "obnoxious arsehole". The cheese went back into the ears and after a few minutes she began to round off her argument. "…And you know what? You know WHAT Harry?" She shouted "You KNOW WHAT?"

"No actually I don't."

"I. HATE. YOU." And with that she stormed out. She then stormed back in again. "And I never want to talk to you EVER AGAIN." She then stormed up the stairs to her dormitory.

There was a bit of pleasant silence.

"Thank Christ for that." Harry said letting out a breath of thoroughly relieved air.

"How long have you been waiting for her to say that?" Asked Seamus, leaning over the back of his chair.

"Dunno. Four, five years?" Harry replied.

"No, I swear it was longer than that." Random Gryffindor said, pausing his game of Wizard Texas Hold 'em.

"Yeah, I thought it was at least six." Interjected Unimportant Guy, looking up from _his_ game of Wizard Snakes and Ladders. Several people murmered in agreement, stopping various games, ranging from Wizard Backgammon to Wizard Charades. No one really knew why there were so many Wizard variations of games, or why Ron was so good at every single one of them, but nobody really dwelled on the fact so let's move on.

Back to the story.

So, from that moment on, Hermione swore she would devote her life to annoying Harry as much as possible because she now hated him. An understandable mission really. Except for the fact that nobody really got why she actually hated him anyway. Even the people that were actually present at the time of the friendship breakdown.

She decided to start her new mission the next day, which just so happened to be the day before… A Quidditch match! And not just any Quidditch match, a Gryffindor V Slytherin one!

Hermione spent most of the day cackling evilly to herself in random shadowy corners. She even sat under the table at lunch emitting booming 'MuhahahahaHAAA's.

"What's that noise?" Asked Ron, pausing from his ice cream sandwich.

"Dunno." Said Harry, popping another cheese and pineapple on a stick into his mouth. Not the stick, you'll understand. Just the cheese and pineapple. They continued to stuff their faces for a while, ignoring the odd laughing sound coming from beneath the table. About five minutes before the bell went for the next lesson the odd noises changed from a booming laugh to quite a lot of muttering.

Harry and Ron stopped eating, looked at each other and in quite a creepy fashion, looked under the table at the same time. Hermione was sitting under there, trying to pull what looked like chewing gum out of her ferret nest of a hair-do.

"…Bloody untidy, that's what they are. Chewing gum under a table. Travesty, that's what it is. And now I'm going to be late for Ancient Runes…" She mumbled, oblivious to the fact her former best friends were staring at her blankly.

"Hermione? What are you doing under the table?" Ron asked. She squeaked, stood up, hit her head, crawled out and ran away, waving her arms wildly for no honest reason.

"Well… That was weird." Ron said as Lavender and Parvati sat down near them.

"Oh that was nothing, assuming you're talking about Hermione." Parvati said. Lavender nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. We caught her under her bed singing songs from the Lion King yesterday."

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	2. The Worst Master Plan Ever

**- CHAPTER TWO -**

**The Worst "Master Plan" Ever**

The next day was alright. A little sunny, slight breeze, quite warm, ground was nice and firm… perfect Quidditch conditions if you cared to ask Harry. Not that anyone did, seen as nobody actually valued Harry's opinion that much.

The Slytherins were being foul, as per usual. Seventeen Gryffindors, one unfortunate Ravenclaw and Professor Sprout had already ended up in the Hospital Wing, after surprise attacks in the hallways that mostly involved ambushing with a giant bucket of paint that stung rather badly if it got in your eye. The Slytherins were too divvy to think of a more original plot and didn't realise that none of the students were hurt at all by their pranks. They just thought 'paint in the eye' was quite a good excuse for missing half an hour of History of Magic. In Professor Sprout's defence she just really, really didn't feel like teaching her smelly little group of first years.

Anyhow, it turns out Harry was talking to himself about the perfect Quidditch conditions, talking to himself as Ron was busy looking like he was about to throw up all over his eggs and bacon.

"…Nice and firm, grass a bit springy which is always good. Dunno why, but sounds like it's a good- Are you even listening to me? You're being overly dramatic again, aren't you?" Harry ended his never-ending spiel as he got a good look at his audience. Ron looked exactly like that Rupert boy did throughout the entire Goblet of Fire movie; like he was about to be very, very ill.

"Not being over-dramatic." Ron croaked, stabbing pitifully at the yolk of his (cold) fried egg. Harry sighed.

"I'm not being funny mate, but you do this every single time. It's getting a bit old now." He said

"What is?" Ron replied hoarsely.

"This whole drama queen, attention seeking "Oh look at me I'm going to pretend to suck at Quidditch and then save some truly fantastic goals" act. Frankly, it's quite annoying. You're taking the attention off of me." Harry replied, pouring himself a glass of pumpkin juice. He then transfigured it into water. The students had long since found out that it was the only way to drink anything other than pumpkin bloody juice.

Ron looked rightly taken aback. "What?" He said in astonishment.

"I said, this whole drama queen-"

"Yes I heard you the first time, I was being rightly taken aback. I'm not a drama queen!"

"Well you are a bit."

"No I'm not!"

"Yeah, you are."

"And what about you Mr Arrogant big-head?"

"I'm allowed to be arrogant."

"How come? How come YOU'RE so special?"

"Do you want a list?"

"No, one reason would suffice."

"Well… hmm… let me see… oh yeah. I'M FAMOUS! AND I HAVE A BIG SCAR!"

Every single person in the Great Hall stopped talking, eating, whatever and stared at Harry.

To make the moment even more dramatic, Harry had pasted on a heroic face and hastily rubbed a grain of salt into his left eye to produce that one, perfect looking tear. This caused several girls to swoon and fall of their chairs. One even burst into tears and threw her arms around his ankle, sobbed about how sad it was, that a lovely boy like him had to go through the torture of getting that scar.

As the noise level went back to normal, Harry prised the hysterical girl off of him and sat back down.

"Well, okay, you're famous…" Ron said in a disgruntled manner.

"Damn right I am!" Harry added cheerfully.

"But I'm not an attention seeker."

"Ooooh yes you are." Harry said smugly, waggling his eyebrows. "Ask anyone. Go on, I dare you."

"Fine! I will!" Ron said indignantly. "Random Gryffindor? Am I an attention seeker?"

Random Gryffindor considered it whilst thoughtfully chewing a peanut butter KitKat. "Well, a bit. Yeah." He said.

Ron slumped down in his chair and began to eat his (cold) breakfast. "Don't say it…" He warned.

"I told you so." Harry gloated.

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Whilst all this was going on, Hermione was stealthily creeping her way out of the Quidditch storeroom type place, "MuhahahahaHAA-ing" under her breath. She sneakily sneaked her way back to Gryffindor tower, drawing some truly odd looks on her way. She tip-toed past Lavender Brown in the common room, who said loudly "Hi Hermione! Why are you in your pyjamas?" Hermione merely answered with a hiss of "Ssssshhhhhhhhhhh… I was never here…" and slinked up the stairs to her dormitory. She was indeed in her pyjamas and not only her pyjamas, but the ugliest, rattiest, oldest pair she owned. "Curse you laundry elves!" She cried, shaking her fist in anger. In all honesty, she hadn't really expected her "Master Plan to Annoy and Possibly Embarrass Arsehole Potter" to take that long. If she had know, she probably would have worn actual clothes. And attempted to brush her hair (if everyone thought REGULAR Hermione hair was scary, then the people who had seen MORNING Hermione hair really must have been terrified, she mused).

Five minutes later, she was walking down to the Quidditch pitch. The match didn't start for another half an hour, but being the Obsessive Compulsive type that she is, she always had to be extra-early for everything. But she told herself she just wanted a good seat.

She sat down by herself, as seen as after her little outburst everyone thought she was mental and was steering well-clear. Everyone except Lavender, who wasn't really that smart at the best of times.

Hermione opened the humongous book she brought with her, _Large and Pointless Book for the Large and Pointless_. Hermione picked the book, not because she was particularly large (although she was pointless), but because she was aiming to have read every book that has ever existed ever. And she hadn't read this one yet.

After approximately four minutes and three sevenths of a second of reading, the Weasley twins materialized next to her on the bench thing.

"HELLO!" they said loudly and simultaneously.

"Um… Hello." Hermione replied, after she had stopped screaming. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh we've come to watch the match." Fred said.

"But how did you-? _Hogwarts: A History_ clearly states you can't-" Hermione was horrified at the prospect of a book being wrong.

"Oh yes, you're the _Hogwarts: A History_ arse-kisser." Noted George wisely.

"Don't fear though, geekaloid." Fred said.

"Dumbledore's just gotten a bit lax with security recently. What with him becoming a ghost and all." George continued.

"Yeah I discovered that little fact out on Tuesday. I was trying to apparate into _Magic Hut_-" Fred said.

"It's the same thing as _Pizza Hut_, but with _Magic_ at the beginning to make it sound more wizardy." Interjected George.

"And I accidentally ended up here. I wasn't really concentrating. I accidentally thought of… ah well… never mind." Fred proceeded to look very shifty for ages. Luckily for him, Hermione changed the subject.

"Why have you come to watch this match? Huh? HUH? What's so special about it? STOP ACCUSING ME WITH YOUR ACCUSING EYES!" She sat there breathing heavily, eyes darting all over the shop.

"Well… um… we kinda have a built in 'Mischief Radar', sort of like Spidey Senses but not as cool, and we sensed something was up…"

"And you know us, never ones to miss out of a bit of mayhem…"

"But now we definitely know something is up." The twins sat and glared at her suspiciously for the next ten minutes until the match began.

The pitch had began filling up with students and when it was suitably crammed with people, the commentary started signalling the start of the match. Everyone was surprised when a completely emotionless and monotonous drone came out of the speaker.

"This Quidditch match is Slytherin Versus Gryffindor. How exciting." The voice droned. "And here come the teams. Slytherin…" The Slytherins came out of their changing room and the green and silver portion of the crowd cheered slightly, not wanting to look too enthusiastic as this would ruin their 'image'. "And the Gryffindors…" As the team came out every other portion of the crowd went barmy, screaming and waving banners and cheering. The Slytherin team looked slightly put out.

Harry could clearly be seen from Hermione's seat, flashing the crowd heroic smiles. Girls were swooning and sobbing left, right and centre. Hermione rubbed her hands in glee and evil laughed like she had never evil laughed before.

"Okay Hermione, what are you up to?" Fred said, crossing his arms in an attempt to look stern and mature. It was sort of ruined by George making bunny ears behind his head.

"Nothing! Honestly! WHY ARE YOU ALL SO SUSPICIOUS?" She shouted, pink and red patches appearing all over her face and eyes darting all over the shop.

"Oh whatever, just shut up. It's starting." Fred replied in a disgruntled manner.

Madame Hooch was bending over the crate where the balls were stored and fiddling around with the clasp.

"Get a move on!" Said someone in the crowd.

"Alright, alright!" She replied, glaring in the general direction the voice had come from. She finally managed to unlock the crate… and gasped in horror.

"THE QUIDDITCH BALLS ARE GONE!" She shrieked. Hagrid let out a girly scream and slumped over in a dead faint, crushing Professors Vector and Sinistra as he did so.

Horrified mutterings spread like wildfire throughout the crowd as Madam Hooch carried on screaming phrases such as "OH DEAR LORD WHAT WILL WE DO?" and "NOT THE QUIDDITCH! ANYTHING BUT THE QUIDDITCH BALLS!"

Hermione took it as her cue to stand up and "MuhahahahaHAA" at the crowd. She quickly performed the _Sonorus_ charm, the very same one which that Bagman chap used a lot in fourth year.

"MuhahahahaHAA!" she laughed. "You foolish people! It was me! It was I, Hermione Granger, who stole the Quidditch balls and hid them as part of my Master Plan to Annoy and Possibly Embarrass that Arsehole Potter! And I fooled you all! Especially YOU!" She turned around and pointed at Harry. And then noticed every single person was giving her strange looks, instead of cowering in fear. She carried on regardless. "Aren't you ANNOYED Harry? Don't you just want to break down and CRY like a GIRL because I ruined your precious game?"

Harry raised an eyebrow (although Hermione couldn't see it). "Erm, no. Actually we just sent Demelza and Ron off to get the spare set."

Hermione somewhat deflated a little. There was a very long silence filled only with cricket chirping and one or two uncomfortable coughs. When Ron and Demelza ambled back onto the pitch, dragging the spare set of Quidditch equipment behind them, Hermione shifted. "Oh… um… I'll… go now shall I?" She mumbled.

"Yes, I think that would be nice." Said Harry, as she sloped off back to the castle.

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All in all, the match was a complete success. Gryffindor kicked Slytherin's slimy arses three-hundred and sixty eight to thirty, on account of most of the Slytherin team being unable to tell their elbow from their backside never mind a bludger from someone else's head. And Draco Malfoy was too scared to even attempt to catch the snitch in case he ruined his manicure. He just sat on his flashy broom ten feet in the air and looked pretty the entire time.

The Gryffindors came back to the common room afterwards for a party (as you do) mud-splattered and happy (because there's always a bit of mud-splattering going on, even on a completely dry day such as that particular Saturday).

Everyone got suitably drunk on spiked Butterbeer, congratulated the team on the success and pointed and laughed at Hermione all night. Most agreed it was very fun.

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	3. I'm not quite sure what's going on

**- CHAPTER THREE -**

**I'm Not Quite Sure What's Going on Yet**

The next morning was Sunday, which came as no surprise to most people as that normally follows Saturday. Everyone except Colin Creevey that is; he had a spazz attack because he thought it was Wednesday and had to spend a week in the hospital wing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, it was Sunday, the day after that FABTASTIC party if you remember. Around about noon Ron stumbled downstairs, bags under his bloodshot eyes, scuffed up hair (not that you could really tell) and he was rubbing the base of his spine gingerly. Haha I made a pun.

Harry awoke with a start when he heard his friend clattering down the stairs. He sat up so fast he flew off the chair he was slumped in, a piece of paper stuck to his forehead where he had been sleeping on it.

"Mufwalatibla?" He said.

"Ow." Ron replied. Neither of them makes much sense with hangovers.

"What happened to you?" Harry asked, unsticking the paper and throwing it into a shadowy corner.

Ron lowered himself slowly into an armchair, wincing painfully. "I think I fell off a trampoline." He said.

"What was a trampoline doing in the Gryffindor common room?" Harry asked.

"Well I don't know! I just know it was there! And I fell off it!" Ron cried. He glanced around the room. "That was some party, eh?"

Several people were passed out around the room, on floors, in chairs and so on and so forth, with wet patches around their heads that looked suspiciously like house-elvess had been cleaning up vomit all night. One small person had even found a place to nap in the empty fireplace.

Harry nodded in agreement. "Shame Hermione was such a spoilsport. She wouldn't let the First Years NEAR the drinks."

"That's so mean."

"I know. It can't be that bad for them though. I mean, Dudley's been drinking since he was about nine. Not that the Dursleys know. They are pretty dense." Harry pondered this subject for a while, thinking back to Dudley's tenth birthday. One of his friends had given him a bottle of whisky. Dudley unwrapped it at the dinner table. His Aunt and Uncle didn't have a clue Dudley was well on his way to cirrhosis of the liver. Harry wondered if they were blind, stupid or both. He thought both was probably more accurate.

"…Hello? HELLO??? EARTH TO HARRY??? HELLOHELLOHELLO-"

"WHAT RON???" Harry was brought back to earth by Ron's irritatingly shrill yell.

"Oh nothing, you just stopped giving me your full attention that's all." Ron replied airily.

"Attention seeker…" Harry muttered. Ron's futile retaliations were drowned out by Harry screams as he was pounced on by Romilda Vane.

"Hi Harry!" She said, pinning him to the floor and smiling creepily.

"Um… Hi… What's up?" He said uncertainly.

"Oh not much, you know, the usual. Homework, lessons. Don't you just HATE Professor Snape, isn't he SO annoying?" She replied as calmly as if they were discussing the weather.

"Right. Er yeah, annoying… Umm… would you mind… getting off me?"

Romilda smiled in a very scary way. "No, I'm good here thanks." She replied baring her teeth.

"Ron!" Harry squeaked. "Ron! Help meee!!!"

Ron appeared around the side of the sofa, brandishing a stick. "BACK YOU FIEND! BACK! BACK I SAY!!!" He jabbed it in the direction of Romilda's eye and she receded into the shadowy corner hissing. Soon after came the sound of paper being chewed and a mumbled sigh of 'Mmmm… Harry germs…".

Harry got up and dusted himself off. "Well that was a bit terrifying wasn't it?" He said. Ron nodded in agreement.

At that precise second, both of the lads realised they were still wearing their mud-splattered Quidditch robes. "Blimy, I think I'm going to have a shower. Get out of these filthy robes. And my hair needs a wash, I feel a bit like Snape. It's not good." Harry said.

"What-oh! That's a good idea! I think I'll have one too!" Ron said loudly, grinning broadly.

Harry paused for a second. "You're a very scary person, you know." He said.

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A good hour later, when they were all squeaky clean and back in the comfy chairs by the fire, Hermione decided to make an appearance. Much too early, in some people's opinion. If they had done something as stupid and embarrassing as her, they agreed they would hide themselves away for at least eight months. AT LEAST.

"Ron. Harry." She said stiffly, as if someone was poking a broken, spiky pole in her back.

"Hermione." Ron replied coldly.

"Retard." Harry said, much the same way. There was a bit of silence.

"So… um… about yesterday…" Hermione began.

"Ah yes, I was wondering when you were going to apologize." Harry said smugly.

She gaped. "Excuse me? I should apologies? It's YOU who should apologize!" She yelled.

"What?? You're the one who was planning something to humiliate me!"

"Yeah and it would have WORKED too."

At this point Ron coughed. It sounded suspiciously like "WOULDN'T". Hermione carried on regardless.

"You should apologies to me for making me look like a total arse!"

Harry raised his eyebrows (he sure was getting mighty good at it - all those hours practicing in the mirror were paying off). "Hermione, you don't need me to make you look like a total arse." He said.

She looked hurt. "If I looked like a total arse wouldn't people be laughing at me all the time? Hmm?" She looked pretty pleased with herself until the small person in the fireplace took this opportune moment to wake up. He looked at Hermione, pointed at her then laughed so hard he inhaled soot and died. Right there. In the fireplace.

Hermione looked like she was about to cry as some house-elves appeared out of nowhere, tidied away the body and lit a nice fire.

"One of these days I'll get you. AND YOUR LITTLE DOG TOO!!!" Hermione screeched. Harry was confused.

"Who, Ron?" He said.

"No, not RON." She replied sarcastically. "Although, humiliating him too isn't a bad idea." She added as an afterthought, pondering her fiendish plan.

"What? Why are you including me??" Ron cried. Hermione just shrugged.

"Nether the less!" She shouted. "I will get you! And it will come when you're least expecting it!"

"You're gonna do it in Potions aren't you?" Harry said.

She looked cross, opened her mouth to say something but though better of it. "DAMN YOU!" She screeched, shaking her fist. She then stomped off mumbling to herself. Harry looked rather pleased with himself. "I thought it would be harder to outwit her didn't you? She's supposed to be the smart one." He said.

Ron looked insulted. "I thought _I_ was the smart one!" He cried, flailing his arms around and accidentally jabbing himself in the arm with his wand, which proceeded to sprout some ominous looking tentacles.

"Yes, Ron. If you want." Harry sighed.


	4. When is a Door Not a Door?

**- CHAPTER FOUR -**

**When is a Door Not a Door? When it's A****jar!**

The next day Harry was forced to take Ron to the Hospital Wing. The tentacles hadn't gone away. In fact they had tripled and now hummed the British National Anthem ninety percent of the time. No one was quite sure why…

Anyhow, Harry didn't really mind missing lessons, as it was a Monday morning, which equaled double charms. He quite liked charms, but his twenty-five foot long essay wasn't done and Professor Flitwick could get quite vicious when he wanted. You wouldn't have thought that a man his stature could do very much, punishment wise, but that's just part of the charade.

When Ron was nicely settled into his little bed and a shrinking potion was put on the unwanted appendages, Harry began his essay.

"Right, so, what's the correct wand movement?" He asked, scribbling down something that contained long words and sounded smart.

"Swish, jab and flick wasn't it?" Said Ron, inspecting an Every-Flavour Bean. He decided to eat it, even though it might as well have had a giant label saying "PUKE FLAVOUR" on it.

"No it wasn't, it was swish, flick, jab." Harry said as Ron spat the bean half way across the room.

"Well what did you ask me for?" Ron replied, a little bit peeved.

Harry just shrugged.

There was a bit of silence, only broken by Harry's quill scratching and Ron's occasional mutterings of "Eurgh, skanky!" and "Why aren't there any nice ones??"

"What are we gonna do about Hermione?" Ron asked after he got totally pissed off and threw the sweets out the window. Outside, there was a muffled shout of "Ow! Who threw that??" They decided to ignore it.

Harry put aside his essay and shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know whether I should worry about it or not. I mean, she's supposed to be the smartest witch in our year, but she hasn't been very successful so far…" He realized his ginger friend had been 'ahem-ing' at him. "Ron I said smartest WITCH!" He said in expiration.

"SO?" He replied, offended. "I can be very feminine when I want to!"

Harry stared in horror. "… I'm going to pretend I did not hear that." He said when his voice decided to come back. There was an uncomfortable silence. "I think I'm… gonna go to… second period…" He shuffled out slowly and closed the door. Then came back in again. "Forgot the essay…" He said.

MEANWHILE... Hermione was holed up in the second floor bathroom with a huge pile of crumpled up parchment by her feet. A loud, waily screeching sound was emitting from the last stall.

She growled angrily and scribbled out what she was writing, scrumpled up the parchment and looked at the large board that was stuck over the mirrors. There were diagrams and notes in shorthand and various pictures of Harry, doing things such as eating breakfast, walking to Herbology with Ron and setting his own eyebrows on fire in Potions.

"Why? Why can I not catch you out Potter??" She cried. "For Gods sakes Myrtle, stop that hideous singing!" She added in the direction of the wailing cubicle.

Myrtle stuck her head through the door and glared. "Sorry, Little Miss Perfect. Some of us have to practice for the Annul GhostIdol competition. I don't sound this good for no reason you know." She said irritably.

"Myrtle, go away. You sound like a dying cat." Hermione said flatly.

The ghost wailed loudly. "You always have to bring up DEATH. SO INSENSITIVE!!!"

Hermione sighed. "Oh, go get eaten by bears." She snapped.

Myrtle wailed. "See! There you go again!" She floated away down the U-bend causing a tidal wave as she went. Hermione just grumbled to herself and tried to keep her precious plans dry, even though there wasn't much point because they were all really, really crap.

She checked the time and gasped in absolute horror when she realized that the bell was about to go for second period. She had actually missed a lesson. Gasp.

Hermione ran to charms so fast things flew off the walls and small children fell over when she sped past. Just as she arrived at the door, she crashed into Harry who was opening it.

"Ow!" Harry said, rubbing his tummy where she had ran into him. "That really hurt!"

"Good." Hermione muttered in reply. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "What are you doing out here? And where's your lapdog, Ron?" She asked.

Harry stuck his nose in the air, a gesture he was led to believe made him look posh and uncaring about trivial peasant matters such as Hermione. In fact, it made him look slightly silly. "That." He said in a snobbish nose-in-the-air way. "Is none of your business, mullet head." And with that he stalked into the classroom and slammed the door in her face.

Hermione began to stroke her chin in a thinking-pose type way, which wouldn't have looked stupid at all if she actually had a beard. Although some might argue she was man enough to have one. She began to form a fiendish plot. 'So… Miiister Potter hasn't got his ooonly friend and ally to save him hasss he??' She thought in a very Gollumish/Put-the-lotion-in-the-basket kind of way.

She evil laughed for a while and then made to open the classroom door. Unfortunately, Neville was pushing it open from the other side at the same time, and we all know how clumsy he is, bless him. Therefore, Hermione was smacked in the face with a door. And that was the end of her. Ha, not really. But she did get a concussion.


	5. Venomous Tentacular

**- CHAPTER FIVE –**

**The Venomous Tentacular and Naughty Magazines**

Hermione woke up several days later to Ron grinning creepily about four inches away from her face. She shrieked and fell out of bed with a loud thump.

Ron shook his head. "Jeeze Hermione." He said. "That was quite a big thump. You would have thought, being unconscious, you might have lost a few pounds…" He froze through a combination of realising what he had just said, and the indescribable look of shock on her face. "Um, um. I mean, I mean, um, err… ahh!" He dove under his duvet and quaked with fear for a while.

Madame Pomfrey threw a turnip at him for being insensitive.

Hermione laughed.

Made Pomfrey threw a swede at her for being alive.

"That was slightly odd." Ron said pleasantly, watching the swede bounce down the hospital wing. One lone tentacle nodded in reply.

"What's up with that?" Hermione asked in puzzlement, rubbing the sore patch on her head where the errant vegetable had hit her.

"What, this?" He replied in surprise pointing at the tentacle as if it were perfectly normal. "Well, the shrinking potion worked on all of them but him. I've named him Steve." Ron said happily as the author cleverly skimmed over the fact that Hermione didn't even know about the tentacle situation.

Hermione looked puzzled. "I didn't even know about the-"

SUDDENLY she was cut off by a short, fat bloke wielding a trumpet who marched into the room yelling "HERE YE, HERE YE" and waving a scroll.

He stood importantly in front of Ron and Hermione's respective beds, conveniently placed next to each other and cleared his throat.

"Ahem! Ahemahemhemhem… Hemahemahemhemheeeem… Ahemhemhem-"

"Before we're old please!" Ron said, Steve hissing angrily.

Trumpet man looked a bit peeved. "AHEM. Since the GhostIdol stage collapsed on Moaning Myrtle yesterday, Ghostie Dumbledore has offered to use the school as official GhostIdol headquarters this year. If you wish to participate you must be dead." Trumpet man looked at the two residents. "I suggest you two stop getting better in the hospital wing if you want to compete." He marched out in an important fashion, sounding his trumpet loudly as he went.

Ron and Hermione pondered quietly to themselves for a minute or two until Harry came bursting in, waving a leaflet.

"Ron!" He cried in euphoria. "Did you hear? It's a GhostIdol competition!! Finally! My chance to shine!" He smiled happily and did a dance that made him look like he needed to pee.

"Harry you have to be dead to compete." Ron said.

"Oh… yeah… right…" Harry looked disappointed for a second. Until he spied Hermione.

He screwed up the leaflet and threw it at her head. Then he spat on her.

"That was unsanitary." Said Ron cheerfully.

Hermione just glared. "You wait, Potter." She spat in such a way that would make Draco Malfoy proud. "You just wait. As soon as I get out of here, you're dead Potter! You hear me? DEAD!" Her voice echoed after him. Even though he wasn't actually going anywhere. It echoed after him nonetheless.

Ron shook Steve at her in rage and Harry shook his fist. Luckily, Madame Pomfrey came along and discharged Ron before a full-scale bitch fight broke out.

The two pals ambled along the corridor towards the Gryffindor common room, forgetting that it was actually Friday and they were supposed to be in Herbology. Ron didn't care, since last time he was in Herbology the Venomous Tentacular tried to eat him. Harry actually found it rather amusing when it lifted him up by the hair, as did most of their class. Especially as Ron was screaming like a girl the entire time and burst into tears when he was finally released.

Ron, however, didn't find it that funny and didn't really want to repeat the experience.

So, they went to Gryffindor tower and since no one was in the Common Room ("How strange!" Remarked Ron) they went to the Dormitory and tried to find something interesting to do.

When Ron was halfway through a game of Exploding Snap with Steve, Harry began to rifle through his trunk.

"Watcha doing?" Asked Ron, peering discretely at Steve's cards. Steve noticed and thwacked him around the head.

"Looking for something." Harry replied.

"What?"

"I dunno."

"Oh right."

Pause.

As Harry threw a bundle of robes across the room, a suspicious looking magazine fell out.

"Whats that?" Ron asked.

"Nothing! Why do you think its anything? Stop asking me so many questions!" Harry yelled, looking around suspiciously with the magazine behind his back.

Ron looked at him and then pulled out his wand. "Accio WhateverHarryhasbehindhisback!" He cried. The magazine flew into Ron's waiting hands.

"Shit." Harry muttered.

Ron raised his eyebrows. "Boobies Boobies Boobies?" He enquired.

"Erm… It's not… er mine! It's not mine, I swear!" Harry said.

There was a bit of silence.

"Wanna look at it?" Ron said.

"Alright then." Replied Harry.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with smuggled-in firewhisky and the gigglings of teenage boys.


	6. Be PrepaAAAred

**- CHAPTER SIX -**

**Be PrepaAAAred!**

The GhostIdol tournament rolled around with much excitement in tow. Rumours were spreading like wildfire, rumours that Dumbledore was going to be singing the Ghostbusters theme tune, that Casper the Friendly Ghost was going to make an appearance and that a special secret judge was going to join the regular panel.

Harry and Ron went down to breakfast on the morning of the competition and sat down next to Dean and Seamus who were having a conversation with Random Gryffindor about the Dumbledore rumour.

"I heard that he wasn't singing Ghostbusters at all, I heard that it was actually 'Little Ghost'." Dean was saying.

"What?? What the FECK is that??" Seamus said somewhat incredulously.

"It's by the White Stripes." Dean said.

"WHO??" Seamus and Random Gryffindor, hereby known as 'Gryf', chorused. I decided to make him a fully fledged character as he keeps popping up all over the shop.

"Well, I thought it was Bananarama's, 'Ghost'." Ron said, helping himself from the tureen of Ready-Brek. Which he was later told was actually an empty bowl that Crookshanks had thrown up in. None the less, everyone looked at him, like "What are you, stupid?"

"What are you, stupid?" Gryf said, throwing his fork at Ron and stomping off somewhere to sulk for no apparent reason. The fork landed pointy end down, jammed through Ron's hand, spearing it to the table. Everyone stared at it, and there was a a moment of stunned silence. Then Ron screamed.

"I'll remove that for you!" Squeaked a voice. A small boy, grinning like a lunatic, grasped the fork and dragged it from the table with a sickening squelch. He then started bowing at Harry like he was some sort of god.

"What the…?" Seamus said, looking at the small boy.

"Is that… you're... um…" Harry struggled to remember the name.

"Nigel!" Said Nigel helpfully.

"Heyhey! That's right! The Niiiiiiiiiiige-Meister!!!" Harry cried, doing some strange pointing business with his fingers.

They "Hey!"'-ed back and forth for a while until a prefect stalked over.

"Break it up, come on now, break it up! Nothing to see here folks! Break it up!" Mister Prefect said ushering Nigel away into a nearby potted fern.

Harry cleared his throat. "Aaanyway… has anyone seen Hermione?" He said.

"Why?" Asked Dean. "I thought you didn't like her."

"Well… I don't really." Harry replied, swirling his ice tea with a straw. "It's just she threatened to do something bad in Potions, and you know, Potions next… though it might be wise to keep an eye on her… that sort of thing…" He said, watching the cool whirly patterns in his drink.

"That's an excellent idea!" Seamus cried happily, high-fiving Dean for no reason. They immediately put on tweed hats and monocles, stuck pipes in their mouths and crept off to Potions with magnifying glasses at the ready.

Ron who had gone back to his breakfast, paused with his spoon almost to his mouth and sniffed the Ready-Brek. "Why does this taste funny?" He said.

Dean, Seamus and Harry sleuthed their way to potions, where they inspected every corner of the dungeon with their magnifying glasses.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which way you look at the situation), Hermione was nowhere to be seen.

Potions was, as usual, a complete waste of everyone's time. Snape just wrote a list of the foulest things he could think of on the board like he usually did and coupled it with impossible instructions. Voila! Instant T's for everyone concerned. Well except Draco Malfoy and ferret-woman herself, Hermione. For some reason they kept on actually making something out of the nonsense Snape set.

Harry could tell that Snape was in a particularly bad mood as he watched the potions master billowing menacingly around the room hissing "Brown! That dog poo isn't nearly kneaded enough!" "Longbottom, did you even READ my instructions?? It says simmer the baby's vomit and maggot guts for EXACTLY twenty minutes and sixty seven seconds!".

Harry sighed as Neville squeaked pitifully "But there's only sixty seconds in a minute! Or is it sixty five? I'm so confuused!!" before the poor boy collapsed in the revolting mixture his cauldron contained.

Seeing that Harry wasn't doing what was instructed, Snape swept in a rather sinister way towards the young protagonist and loomed over him.

"So Mr Potter thinks he's too GOOD for my lessons does he?" He said in a low voice. Of course, the entire class had to stop what they were doing and watch Snape pick on his favourite student.

"Well," Harry began in a bored voice "I was just looking up 'Ding Dang Doodle Potion' in _Intermediate Potions Part 6 and a Half_, and well… It doesn't seem to be in there. Sir." He looked up at the teacher and leaned slightly to the left, so he could avoid the bead of grease that was about to drip off Snape's nose.

Someone in the background said in a rubbish American accent "Oooh you got BURNED!"

Snape opened his mouth, then closed it. He opened it again and then when he realised he couldn't think of a retort furiously said "Four hundred and thirty seven points from Gryffindor. And go stand in the corridor."

"For crying out loud…" Harry mumbled as he collected his stuff and sloped off in the direction of the door. He jumped when a large, slimy kidney shaped object came flying past his left ear and splattered on the wall next to the door. He turned and glared at Snape who was standing, leering at him.

"And Potter?" The teacher said. "Please have a twelve foot essay of the importance of… um… Swiss Cheese in potions making for me by tomorrow."

Harry gasped. "But… But Sir! It's GhostIdol tonight!! GHOSTIDOL!!!" He said frantically, waving his arms around.

"So? By tomorrow." Came the reply.

Harry grumbled as he walked out the door. "Greasy arse." He said.

"I HEARD THAT!"

As Harry sloped along the corridor, feeling generally miserable, he heard a terrible noise that seemed to be getting louder and screechier the further he walked. He turned a corner and on the right was a slightly open door from which the horrific noise was pouring out of.

He quickly conjured up a pair of earmuffs (unfortunately not the cool pink n' fluffy type) and stuck his head round the door, grimacing from the noise that he could still hear through the earmuffs.

What he saw made him burst into a spontaneous fit of high-pitched giggling.

Hermione was in what Harry now realised was the Room of Requirement. Three walls were covered in shelves that contained hundreds of books with titles such as '_Doh Ray Mee: The Art of Singing_' '_Be a Karaoke Queen_' and '_So You Want to Be a Singer But You Can't Actually Singt_'. Some tables holding piles and piles of sheet music occupied the remaining wall, along with a stand for said sheet music and what seemed to be some sort of music box. It was open, playing "I'm a Slave 4 U" by Britney Spears and Hermione was singing along using her wand as a microphone.

As you can probably imagine, the result was atrocious.

After Harry had sniggered away for about half the song and just as he was on the verge of actually wetting himself, Hermione caught sight of him in the full-length mirror she was gyrating in front of.

"I'm a SLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE for- HARRY JAMES POTTER!! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING YOU PERVERT?? SPYING ON PEOPLE!!" She shrieked pointing her wand so hard at the music box that it screeched to a stop and caught fire.

By now Harry was clutching the doorframe, hyperventilating like mad. "I… it… you look… so… hahahaha… oh my g… hahaha… so… so stupid… heehee… hahaha… you… Britney Spears… heeheehee…"He wheezed, sliding onto the floor.

She kicked him swiftly in the shins and he stopped laughing.

"Ow! You're mad as a badger you are! What was that for??" He asked, outraged.

"Don't laugh at me." Hermione replied.

"I'm sorry I won't do it again." Harry said, struggling to keep a straight face. Hermione walked back towards the mirror and began to do some rather enthusiastic stretches.

"I suppose you want to know what I'm doing, knowing you as I do you nosey bastard." She said.

There was a loud snort as Harry realised there was sheet music stuck in the back of her ferret nest. Hermione spun around and gave him the stare of death before turning back to her music box, which was smoking merrily in the corner.

He composed himself immediately. "Ahem. Yes. Me. Nosey bastard. Of course. What's going on here?"

"Well." Hermione began, prodding the music box strategically with her wand. "Continuing my quest to embarrass and upstage you I've decided that I need to regain my status as the most popular Gryffindor in school." There was another series of snorts but Hermione decided to ignore them. "I need to get the school back on my side before I advance with my plans any further. I'm going to enter, and win, the GhostIdol contest!" She ended dramatically.

There was quite a fair bit of silence so Hermione stopped pretending to fix the music box (she had no idea what the hell she was doing anyway) and looked back at her audience. Said audience was staring back at her with the most incredulous look on his face.

"Um… I, er, hate to wee on your campfire Hermione. But you aren't dead. You can't enter." Harry spoke slowly, as dealing with a very small and backwards child.

"AHAH!" She cried, leaping in the air. "You neglect to remember that I, Hermione Granger, am the smartest witch in our year!"

"Actually Ron is." Harry replied automatically.

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Oh right okay then."

Long pause.

"Well, er… shall I let you get back to it then? The dancing or whatever you're calling it?"

"Alright then."

"Goodo. I'll… um… yeah… see you later I suppose."

"Oh I'll see you later alright. All I can say is BE PREPARED!!!"

Harry backed out of the door as Hermione 'MuhahahaHAA-ed' until the Britney Spears song came back on, accompanied by a shriek of "EUREKA!"

Harry let out a high-pitched giggle, once out in the safety of the corridor.

"Heeheehee. She is SO weird!" Said the boy who was talking to himself.


	7. GhostIdol Baby Baby

**- CHAPTER SEVEN - **

**GhostIdol Baby, Baby**

Later that day, at 7:32 in the evening to be precise, everybody was in the Great Hall where a giant stage had been erected. There were rows and rows of uncomfortable plastic chairs and a long judges table in front of the stage, covered in a spangled silver tablecloth. Seated at this table were Ghost Dumbledore, the head of Ghost Functions Inc, Mr Dead McGhostington and a secret judge no one knew the identity of. Mostly because there was a similarly spangley red tablecloth over said judges head.

Ron was bouncing in his seat, on the verge of soiling himself with excitement as Harry gave him increasingly furious looks.

"Look mate!" Cried The-Boy-Who's-Essay-Was-Ruined as his elbow was knocked for the seventeenth time, further smudging his already abysmal essay. "That's like, the millionth time you've done that! If I don't get this done by tomorrow Snape will try and beat me up with a lead pipe." Ron stopped bouncing for a second and gave his friend a look that said, "I don't believe you one jot".

"Don't look at me like that." Said Harry. "He did it to Justin Finch-Fletchley last week, you know."

"Justin?" Ron replied. "How on earth did Snape manage to beat him up?"

Harry did some more nifty eyebrow raising. "Have you _seen_ Justin? He's like a girl, honestly. I doubt he could even beat up the Creevey brothers." Harry sighed as two cameras inconspicuously slithered over his shoulders. "No! Not you!!" He yelled. The cameras slithered away, accompanied by two loud groans of disappointment.

"Oooh my god, I so can't believe you just SAID that." Ron squealed. "At least Justin's built stronger than that Ernie. Ohmigod he is like, the WEAKEST person EVER in the HISTORY of EVER!" Ron flipped his overly long fringe and crossed his arms and legs.

"Ron. Why do you even know how these people are built? Why??" Harry said, throwing his essay in the air. Ron opened his mouth. Harry interrupted. "No, actually please don't answer that. Please, please don't."

Ron closed his mouth and (thankfully) didn't finish his sentence. Harry spied his essay scattered all over the floor.

"Oh BIATCHES!" He yelled when some obnoxious-looking third years tromped all over it on the way to their seats. One of them, a small girl with alarmingly yellow hair, turned around and shook her fist at Harry. Ron sprung out of his chair and said loudly "Oh no she DIDN'T!"

"Ron! Please! Will you sit down!" Harry cried in expiration, returning with his mildly dirty essay. "My god, you're more of a bloody woman than Hermione. Its like SHE'S the boy, and YOU'RE the girl!" He continued, glancing around at all the people that were staring at them.

Ron looked rather offended by this statement. "How can you doubt my masculinity? How can you-"

"SPEAKING OF HERMIONE!" Harry said loudly as a rather effective form of changing the subject. "Isn't that her over there?" He and Ron squinted at the stage where Hermione's head was poking out of the side of the curtain. She seemed to be bouncing around with glee, clutching a sheet.

"Why is she holding a pink sheet?" Ron remarked. Harry just shrugged in reply. There were a few minutes of amiable silence.

Quite suddenly, Harry had the weird feeling that something was not as it should be. He glanced at Ron, but Ron was only drawing a puppet onto his own hand, which for Ron's standards wasn't particularly strange.

Harry pondered for a few moments more, then realised what was weird. His foot was cold. Which is perfectly peculiar since he was wearing shoes.

"WHERE'S MY SHOE??" He leapt up and looked around frantically, realising that one of the said shoes was missing. "WHERE'S MY BLOODY SHOE GONE YOU FIENDS??" Suddenly he spied a dark haired figure trying to slither down the aisle between the chairs undetected. The figure had his SHOE!

"Oi! Stop! Quit your movement!" The person turned around briefly to acknowledge they had been caught in the despicable act of thieving.

Harry recognised the bandit immediately. "Romilda Vane. I should have known." He remarked darkly. "RON! Help me, Romilda Vane has my shoe!" He yelled at his best friend.

"What was that?" Ron said, via his hand puppet.

"Never mind!" Harry shouted back. 'If I want my shoe back I'll have to get some better allies.' He thought, stroking an imaginary beard. 'Some smarter people on my side' He cackled quietly to himself.

Several people were staring at Harry like he had grown an extra head. "What in the name of arse is he doing?" One girl remarked to her boyfriend. But neither of them really cared so they just went back to feeling each other up.

Harry spied reinforcements on the horizon in the form of Ernie McMillan and Gryf. Gryf is friends with almost everyone because he is an expendable character, whatever the task, whoever the person he'll be there. Everyone except the Slytherins, because it's just not the done thing to be friends with Slytherins. Anyway.

"Gryf! Stop her!" Harry yelled, waving his arms around. Gryf pointed at Romilda, in a questioning sort of way. Harry nodded and smiled encouragingly (scarily). Gryf proceed to perform the most fantastic rugby tackle, which ended in Romilda being squashed under him, screaming like a Banshee. He took Harry's shoe from her and began thwacking her with it whilst Ernie looked on in shock, squealing, "Do be careful! Oh please do be careful!!"

Harry bounded down the aisle with triumph on his face. "FOILED AGAIN I SEE!!" He said to Romilda who stopped hissing when she realised it was Harry.

"Oh, hi Harry. What's up?" She said in a way that might have passed for casual if A) Gryf weren't sitting on her and B) He wasn't hitting her with a shoe.

"I'll take that thank you!" Harry swiped the shoe and rammed it on his foot.

That's when he realised it wasn't his shoe at all.

Maybe the fact that it was four sizes too small and had a three-inch heel that gave it away, we'll never know.

"Oh. Erm… This… Isn't mine?" Harry said uncertainly, inspecting the shoe.

"No, it's my friend Gwen's. I was fetching it for her you see." Romilda replied standing up and flicking her hair around. "She placed it there so that I would have a reason to be near enough to get a lock of your hair- Oh, arse. I mean... er, um… I LOVE YOU!!" She shrieked, running off into the distance.

Harry was crestfallen. "So where's my shoe?" He asked. Gryf shrugged and ate a ham sandwich whilst Ernie passed out from squealing so much during the scuffle. He turned rather blue in the face and his leg started to twitch eerily. And then he died. Nobody really minded.

Except Hannah Abbot who went into mourning for the next thirty-seven years of her life, whereupon she would fall in love with a short squat man, bearing a striking resemblance to a goblin. They would go on to have six goblin children, four of which Hannah would name Ernie in tribute to her long-lost love.

Back in the present, Harry looked like he was about to cry over his lost shoe when Ron stood up on his chair and started yelling "YOO HOO!! HARREEY!! I FOUND YOUR SHOE IN MY POCKEEET!!"

Harry squealed with delight and ran (in slow motion mind you; the boy knows how to make a dramatic effect) towards Ron and his beloved shoe. They would never be parted again! Well until bedtime at least. Ron was thoroughly relieved that Harry was too busy being thrilled to ask any awkward questions such as "Why was my shoe in your pocket?" Harry was being far too critical these days, Ron thought.

As Ron thought this, strobe lights and a smoke machine started up at the front of the stage, along with some overly loud dramatic music that was blatantly a rip-off of the Pop Idol/American Idol theme tune. Several people were blinded, choked and deafened. The very dead were thrown into a pit along with Ernie.

Mr Dead McGhostington floated up onto stage and began to speak in a monotonous drone that echoed all over the hall. Everybody ran to their seats immediately and sat down expectantly at the beginning of the speech.

"Hello. Welcome to this years Annual GhostIdol tournament. Let me hear your approval." The ghost droned. The hall erupted into eardrum shattering screams, yells and cheers. This went on for several moments in which Mr McGhostington actually appeared to be amused. For about three seconds.

"Alright that's enough." He said in a disgruntled manner and the noise immediately ceased. "Let me thank you all for attending tonight's performance." He continued. "I would also like to thank Dumbledore for allowing us the use of his great hall as our other stage collapsed." There was a wail from backstage that obviously came from Moaning Myrtle.

"Anyway, I think now would be an appropriate time for us to unveil the secret judge. Dumbledore, if you please." Mr McGhostington nodded to Dumbledore who turned to the congregation.

"Students, teachers, ghosts and tree frogs." He smiled. The students, teachers, ghosts and small colony of frogs smiled back. "I am delighted to reveal to you the special guest judge." He whipped the spangled cloth off the person's head, to reveal a somewhat familiar face (to some). "Mr Simon Cowell!"

The muggle-born and half blood witches and wizards in the room cheered at one of televisions favourite personas. Those who did not know who Simon Cowell was smiled and nodded as if they did, presumably so they wouldn't look stupid. Naturally, as with most occasions of smiling and nodding, it made them look even more idiotic.

Simon looked decidedly bored and slightly disgruntled at having a sheet on his head for three hours. He said to the screaming crowd "Delighted, I'm sure" in an uninterested voice.

One overexcited witch broke free of the crowd and ran through the barrier of surly looking security guards that had popped up around the judge's table. "OHMIGODILOVEYOUSOMUCHCANIHAVEYOURAUTOGRAPH??" She screamed before breaking down in tears. She was then carried off, still sobbing and screaming, by two of the security guards.

"Well, erm… anyway. Shall we get on with it then?" Dumbledore said brightly. "Take it away, ominous voice!" He sat back in his chair, reclining pleasantly, whilst the audience continued to ogle Simon Cowell.

An ominous gameshow voice began to talk as most tried to fix their attentions to the stage, where more blinding strobe lights were flashing along with the ripped-off theme tune. These people began to look distinctly cross-eyed as they were trying to watch two things at once (Simon and the show).

"And now, for your personal viewing pleasure I'm delighted to announce… Arrrrrrrrmless Jooooohn!!" Said the gameshow voice as the ghost of Armless John floated on stage. The audience clapped politely and settled down to watch.

After four acts in which three had gone off in tears thanks to Simon ("I can honestly say that's the worst performance I've ever seen" "The song, zero. The voice, zero. The performance, zero. The look? Don't even go there."), the voice was ready to announce the fifth act.

"Aaaaand noooow. Laaaadies aaaand Gentlemen. Pleease put your haaaaands togetheeerr forrrrrr… Moooaning Myrrrrtle!" The voice said as the first strains of Myrtles song choice commenced.

"When I waaas youunnGGee…" Myrtle began, shrieking in a heartfelt manner into the magical microphone (the Sonorous charm doesn't work on ghosts as they are in fact, not solid). "I never neeeEEdeeD annyOOoone…"

By this point in the song (yes, the second line) Simon was actually sitting with his hands over his ears, as were most others in the hall, and by the time she got to "AAALLLL BYYYY MYYYYYSEEEeeeEEEeeeeEelllf! DON'T WAAaAANNA BEEeE!" people had actually begun rolling in he aisles, screaming in pain.

"Okay, stop stop stop!" Simon Cowell said, making slashing motions with his hands. Myrtle stopped and blinked owlishly at him from behind her huge pearly spectacles. "What on EARTH was that?" Simon continued, looking at Myrtle almost as if he didn't believe it. "That has got to be the WORST singing I've ever heard-" Myrtle wailed loudly.

"-I can honestly say you sound like a dying cat-"

"DEATH!"

"You should be fed to bears. And die-"

"DEATH! SO INSESITIVE!"

"-and when the bears have eaten you, catch pneumonia from the coldness of the bears stomach-"

"DEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATH!"

"-and the bear would probably STILL sound better than you did."

With that final word from Simon Cowell, Moaning Myrtle buried her head in her hands and ran sobbing for the toilets. Many people rejoiced. Mr Dead McGhostington cleared his throat nervously after ten seconds of silence and said "Well. Um, I suppose the next act will be-"

"THERE WILL BE NO NEED. I CAN INTRODUCE MYSELF…" A booming voice said, cutting of McGhostington. A seemingly solid sheet flew down from the rafters of the stage.

Ron looked at Harry in a bewildered fashion. Harry, being the only person who knew what was going on, gasped in horror. "Oh… no…"


	8. Rusty Crutch

**-CHAPTER EIGHT-**

**Rusty Crutch**

"What? What's going on? I HATE BEING IGNORED." Ron whined, stamping his foot as the sheet began to laugh ominously on stage, accompanied by some well-placed lightning effects. Harry dropped his essay in revulsion, not caring that it was being trampled, not caring that Ron was behaving like a five year old girl. He was so very repulsed by what was happening on stage he couldn't even tear his eyes away.

Hermione.

Wearing a pink sheet over her head.

With eyeholes cut out of it.

Singing to the Spice Girls 'Stop'.

And doing the accompanying dance.

By herself.

Even though there were five of them.

There was a low humming as the audience began to mutter to each other about the strangeness of what was happening. Of course, they didn't know it was Hermione. Yet.

About halfway through, after a lot of conferring with the other judges, Simon Cowell stood up. "Excuse me." He said loudly. The music stopped at once. I mean, come on, it was SIMON COWELL. His word is like GOD; of COURSE it stopped. Hermione continued, oblivious, totally in her own fantasy world where she was the most famous and talented pop star ever.

"EXCUSE ME." Simon repeated sounding ever so slightly hacked off.

"THANK YOU VERY- What?" Hermione said, a tad peeved.

"HELLO!" Said Peeves. NOT BLOODY YOU PEEVES. PLEASE KINDLY PISS OFF. "GOODBYE!" Said Peeves.

Were was I? Oh yes. So anyhow, Hermione was glaring at Simon Cowell in what she liked to believe was a menacing and surly fashion. It was actually more of a squint to be honest. Simon Cowell, one hand placed casually on his hip gave her a sarcastic look and then said "Thank you. At least that awful noise has stopped." Hermione's bottom lip began to tremble. "I have to be completely honest here and say here and now that was the single worst singing performance I've ever had the displeasure to hear. And I went to the Liverpool X Factor auditions." Hermione began to cry noisily but still the onslaught continued. "You're not even an actual ghost so I don't really know what you're doing here _anyway_." Simon raised an eyebrow and waited for the imminent rebuff.

"I am SO a real ghost!!" Hermione sobbed, grabbing a corner of her sheet and wiping her eyes through the eyeholes.

"No you aren't. Look." Faster than the eye could see, Simon Cowell ran up onto the stage and ripped the sheet from Hermione's head, exposing her as a fraud for the whole world to see. Simon Cowell is so special. He even has superpowers.

At the knee-tremblingly shocking revelation of Hermione's lies, the entire crowd rushed to the front of the stage in one huge riotous wave. Harry screamed and threw himself behind a conveniently placed column, crying "SAVE YOURSELVES". Unfortunately, Ron didn't get Harry's useful advice in time. He was trampled. A lot.

"My spleen!" He cried as a person trod on his face.

Harry whimpered behind the column, sending up prayers to heaven. As the mob ambushed Hermione and swept her up above their heads, Simon Cowell sighed with satisfaction.

"My job here is done." He said, clicking his fingers and vanishing with a 'pop'.

A huge mountain of GhostIdol merchandise fell out the air, landing with a heavy thud on Ron.

"My other spleen!" his muffled voice shrieked.

The words "I'll be back for series two…" faded like the wind.

Anyhow, Hermione was carried out of the hall by the pitch-fork wielding mob (since there always has to be pitchforks in a mob, it's like the law). The sheet had ridden up and a pair of dictionary-patterned underpants were on prominent display as she screamed curses and death-threats.

Harry remained trembling slightly behind the pillar and thanking the baby Jesus, whilst Ron groaned and twitched on the floor. Harry stumbled, blinking in the sunlight that was mysteriously streaming through the hole in the wall that the Mob had made.

Mysterious, because it was approximately 9pm. And dark outside.

Anyhow, Harry staggered towards Ron who was very slowly attempting to stand. "By jove, that was a bit of a calamity twasn't it old chap?" Harry said.

"Erm, yes. It was." Ron replied, twisting his arm around to check for breaks.

"Yars, jolly old kerfuffle. How does a good old game of rugger sound old bean?" Harry continued, sticking his thumbs into his pockets and rocking on his heels. A curly moustache appeared as if from nowhere on his face, along with an impressive pair of mutton chops.

"Yeah. 'Spose." Ron brushed the dust off his ankle swinger trousers. "Er, Harry?"

"Yars, Ronald old matey? Toodle Pip? Bob's your Uncle?" Harry twirled the moustache.

"Why are you talking like a tosser from the 1920's?"

Harry thought about this for a second. "Hmm… Not sure to be honest…" He slowly peeled off the moustache and sideburns. "Sorry about that."

"Yeah. Anyway!" Ron, certain that no bones were broken and no organs had gone walkabouts, sprung upwards in a sprightly manner. "Wow! Did you see who won?? Who won? Did you see? No? Why? Didn't they say?? Why didn't they say?"

"I don't know." Harry said in an annoyed manner. He suddenly remembered his Snape essay. "Oh BALLS!" He said, looking around the room wildly. Harry spied a few fluttering pieces of parchment speeding across the hall and sprung into action. Harry army rolled around the room, over benches and under tables, grindingly slowly to a halt behind the judges table before springing a surprise offensive attack on the essay. The whole time Ron bounded after him, asking stupid questions and generally being annoying.

Harry reached the tattered remains of his essay, and sunk to his knees. "Noo!" He cried, throwing it up in the air.

"What?? What's happening Harry?? Is that your essay Harry?? Oooh what happened to it Harry?" Ron said like an excitable spaniel.

Harry, tears shining in his eyes screamed "Shut UP Ron!" as his friends alarming hair bobbled up and down in front of him. "STOP FLASHING ORANGE AT ME YOU STUPID GINGER BASTARD!!"

Ron looked insulted. "I'm not ginger." He said. "Or orange."

"For God's sake Ron, you're practically fluorescent!" Harry cried, weeping over the shredded parchment.

Ron drew himself up to his full, lopsided stance. "I resent that."

"Have you never even looked in a mirror??" Harry said somewhat sarcastically. Ron opened his mouth to answer then stopped.

"Well… no actually." He said. "I was always you, know, poor. Mirrors weren't as necessary as you know, food, or you know. Stuff.

Harry was flabbergasted. There is no other way to describe it. Actually, there is. Shocked, for example, or amazed, or astounded. Staggered even. But none of those are as cool as flabbergasted. So anyway. Yes, Harry was flabbergasted. "But, but Ron! Are you trying to tell me, you've never seen your reflection? Ever?? You don't even know what you LOOK like? How is that possible, there's like a hundred mirrors around Hogwarts!"

Ron shrugged. "Well. I've always imagined that I looked a bit like Studley Trevelwindo. You know, the fit one from the Portuguese Quidditch squad."

Harry opened and shut his mouth, and shook his head in bewilderment. Studley Trevelwindo was a bronzed Adonis of godly proportions with tousled brown hair. Ron, on the other hand, was a lanky, pasty ginger with knobbly knees and a head that looked too big for his body.

Harry scrabbled around on the floor, still shaking his head. He came across a fragment of mirror that had been broken off the stage in the riot and slowly raised it to Ron's eye level.

"Ahaha! Ahaha! Who's this loser Harry?? I've seen him following me around school." Ron giggled, poking the mirror. "Hahaha look at him! Wow he does what I do, wooooo…!" Ron was waving his hand around and making faces.

"Ron…" Harry said slowly. "Meet your reflection. Reflection, Ron."

A slow dawning of horror washed over Ron's face. "This… this is what I look like? Really?" He gasped. Harry nodded sympathetically. "But… but… but I'm GINGER!!" He screamed.

"I know Ron, I know." Harry said, patting him on the back as Ron sobbed on his shoulder.

"Why did no one tell me?" He cried.

"We just kinda assumed you knew…"

"People thought I actually went around looking like this ON PURPOSE?"

-----

The next day was Friday. People could tell it was Friday as the previous day had been Thursday, and on most people's calendars this precedes Friday. Except Ron's because he's too poor to afford a non-defected one.

Anyhow.

Harry was sitting at the breakfast table, with bloodshot eyes. He was trying to eat his cornflakes but kept falling asleep. The essay had been finished exactly 43 minutes ago and was safely stowed in his bag.

Dean and Seamus kept sniggering as Harry kept waking himself up with a giant snort whenever he fell forwards into his bowl.

Suddenly, a hush fell over the great hall. Dean and Seamus stopped sniggering and looked towards the doors with the rest of the students. Dean slowly reached out, grabbed Harry by the hair and yanked his face in the direction of the doors.

"Wha…?" Harry said, before he shook his head to clear the sleepiness. "Ron?" He gasped.

Ron strutted down the aisle between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables to that Beegee's song. He was stained splotchy orange and wearing a crap blonde wig that looked like Uncle Rico's hair in Napoleon Dynamite. If you don't know what it looks like, Google it. Seriously. Google it now.

The Slytherin table began to laugh uproariously, provoking the rest of the school to join in. Ron, being very backwards, thought they were praising his good looks and just smiled, winking and pointing at a Hufflepuff fifth year who fell off her bench in mirth.

"Yo, Harry." Ron said, striking a pose before sitting on the bench next to him.

"Ron… I just… I'm just speechless…" Harry said, recoiling in horror. Dean and Seamus were in silent hysterics. You know that type of laughing where your ribs begin to hurt and you stop breathing for a bit.

"Do you like it??" Ron said excitedly. "It's part of my new look." He smiled hopefully.

"But… Just… WHY? Just why??" Harry said.

Ron lowered his voice. "Because yesterday I saw the light Harry." Harry looked on in disbelief as Ron made his speech. "You and the mirror made me realise… I was…_ugly_."

"But-"

"No!" Ron held up a hand. "No, don't try and deny it."

Harry looked confused. "What? I wasn't going to. I was just going to ask why going round looking like a tosser is any better than being ugly, actually."

"Oh… um… Don't you like it then?" Ron said forlornly.

Harry scrabbled to recover himself. "Oh, no I didn't mean… erm…" He trailed off. Ron's eyes began to fill with tears. "Erm… Why are you all orange?" Harry said cheerily, changing the subject.

Ron looked shifty. "Well, I went a bit overboard on the fake tan. It went a bit wrong. I didn't think anyone would notice." Ron said, his face glowing orange. "Are you sure you don't like it?"

"Erm, no… its er… yeah." Harry glanced around the still-laughing room and grabbed Rob by the arm. "Come on, I er… need your help with something…" He hustled Ron out of the room and up to Gryffindor tower. When they encountered anyone else on the journey, Harry shoved Ron behind him and said "Nice day, isn't?" He then smiled creepily at them until the person went away.

When inside the tower Harry glanced around furtively, checking it was empty. Just as Ron said "What did you need help with then?" Harry suddenly made a grab of the wig on Ron's head but Ron screamed and leapt behind a chair, holding it desperately on his head.

"Ron! Give it to me!" Harry shouted. "You look like a complete idiot!"

"You said you liked it!" Ron cried.

"It was a lie! A damned blatant lie! Give it to me!" Harry dove for it, but Ron leapt up with surprising sprightliness and jumped out of the portrait hole. He paused on the cusp of the entrance and screamed "You can take my dignity but you will never take my wig!" before leaping out into the beyond.

There was a girl screaming in the distance and Harry heard a distant shout of "Why are you screaming?? I LOOK HOT, DAMN YOU!!"

Harry shook his head sadly. "Poor deluded Rusty." He said, trudging slowly up towards his bedroom.

The dorm room door burst open again one minute later and Harry flew out and down the stairs when he realised that he was meant to have been in Potions ten minutes ago.


	9. The AntiOrange League

**-****CHAPTER 9****-**

**The Anti Orange League! Huzzah!**

The door to the dungeons burst open with an impressive slam. Draco Malfoy, who was sitting near the entrance, instinctively stuck out his foot, just because that's the type of thing that Draco does. Harry went barrelling over it, landing head first in Neville's mound of flobberworms. He wiped the goo from his eyes screaming "I'M HERE! I'M HERE! DON'T KILL ME, I'M HERE!"

The whole class looked on as Harry spun wildly around the room, panting like a maniac. He breathed a sigh of relief as Snape was nowhere to be seen. "Thank God the overgrown old bat isn't here yet. I just can't _stand_ his greasy face. Can you imagine what he would have looked like if he'd been here?" Harry pulled several grotesque facial expressions and grinned at Neville who was sitting in front of him. Neville was as still as a statue, a petrified look on his face. "What's up, Nev?" Harry laughed. "You look like you've seen ol' Snapey standing right behind me after ironically sliming out of the ingredients cupboard when I wasn't looking..." Harry looked around the rest of the room. Most of the students were wearing the same expression as Neville. Except for Malfoy and Co, obviously, who were sniggering to themselves in the corner.

"Oh. Right." Harry said quietly, slowly turning around to face the livid Snape, who was in fact standing behind Harry after ironically sliming out of the ingredients cupboard when he wasn't looking.

Snape loomed over Harry, grease dripping ominously from his hair and his robes billowing. A small Slytherin first year was crouched under Snape's desk, waving two fans around to get the effect just right. Harry looked at the boy questioningly and the boy squeaked "I'm doing it to bring up my Potions grade!"

"So, you've decided to grace us with your presence, Mister Potter?" Snape said nastily.

"Well I wouldn't be standing here otherwise." Harry said.

"Don't talk when I am talking you insolent boy!" Snape screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.

Harry wrinkled his nose and wiped the spit from his face. "Sorreey. I thought you'd finished" He said.

"Well I WASN'T!" The Potions master said indignantly. He then deflated slightly. "Actually, I, um, didn't have anything else to say."

"There we go then." Harry said.

Snape drew himself back up to his everyday intimidating stance. "Nevertheless that does NOT give you the right to INSULT your SUPERIORS."

Harry raised a well-practiced eyebrow. "Superior. That's debatable."

"Why are you always undermining my authority? Why? WHY??" Snape was, by now, panting heavily and a series of titters arose from the class as his pallid face stained blotchy pink. "STOP THAT LAUGHING." He screamed. Everyone shut up. Snape looked wildly at the class and his angry gaze settled on an unlucky Gryffindor. "YOU. STOP BREATHING SO LOUD. 600 POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR. 700 POINTS TO SLYTHERIN." The boy opened his mouth to argue back.

"But! But, sir-" He gasped, but Snape threw a spleen at him.

"Don't. Even. Think. About it." He hissed. As Snape had never been that brilliant at sporting events, the spleen landed about three feet from its intended target, but it's the thought that counts.

Harry, meanwhile, had been slowly sidling towards the door. He was pretty sure that if he was quiet enough and no one drew attention to him he could sneak away without being noticed. He wasn't really relishing the thought of handing in his essay. It was rather bad. After Harry had left Ron locked away in their dorm room, he had returned to the cosy fire in the common room determined to re-do his essay. And it was going to be the best darn essay that had ever been written!

…Then he decided that it would be a good idea to train himself to hold his breath for abnormal amounts of time, just in case he should ever be in a situation where that would come in handy. So that distracted him until about three-thirty in the morning.

Then he decided to get on with his essay. …But of course, by then, it was so late that it took a dozen cans of Relentless to even stay awake and he was so high on the alarming caffeine content that most of the handwriting was practically illegible. The random spillages covering approximately half the total area of the essay didn't really help the overall presentation either.

'_Yess_' Harry thought. '_In your face world!__ I've escaped the clutches of that overgrown, evil, slimy, smelly-_'

"POTTER"

Harry stood poker still, one foot half way out the door. "Balls." He said.

"Potter, you really must be as stupid as I've always know, as you seem to forget that, for all intents and purposes, I can read your mind." Snape gave him a steely glare. Harry slowly slid his foot back over the threshold, coming to a stop in such a stance that would normally be gracing a seven year old lad being told off. "Essay. Now." Snape said.

Harry fumbled blindly in his bag and shoved the essay in Snape's general direction.

The rest of the class were watching this exchange with a mixture of avid amusement and painful empathy. The Slytherin's being the former had actually got Pansy Parkinson making them some popcorn.

"What are these stains?" Snape spat after briefly inspecting Harry's essay. Harry mumbled something in reply. "What? Speak properly you insolent child." Snape shouted.

"Relentless." Harry sulked.

"What, pray tell, is that?"

"It's a muggle drink consisting of mostly caffeine." There were jeering insults from the Slytherins, a lot of them containing the word 'mudblood'. These calls stopped however when Dean slapped Malfoy around the head. Malfoy whipped out his pocket mirror and began to frantically check his hair.

"I can't even read this, it is quite frankly appalling. You will sit in detention tomorrow and re-do this essay. I expect it will take at least two hours with your atrocious academic capacity." Snape turned around to the rest of the class sharply, told them off, then billowed away to make Neville cry.

The rest of the two-hour class passed without incident and at break Harry sloped off to the Transfiguration Courtyard muttering darkly to himself.

As he crossed the lawn he caught sight of a small crowd around a bench, on which he was not entirely surprised to see Ron was standing on. He was wearing the stupid wig again and holding a sign demanding a cull of ginger people. Harry rolled his eyes and sighed.

He stormed over to the sniggering crowd and said loudly. "Ron, I am so not in the mood for this." Ron looked around happily and shouted "Down with gingers! Join the anti-orange league!" He waved his sign enthusiastically.

"Ron. Get. Down. From. There." Harry said through gritted teeth.

"Never!"

"I'm not going to ask you again."

Ron looked at Harry, his wig slightly askew with a small tuft of tangerine hair poking out the front. "But don't you want to rid the world of the unworthy?? The blight on our society??"

"You are ginger. Your whole family is ginger. You ARE the blight on society." Harry snapped. The crowd snorted almost in unison as Ron stiffened and leaned down to Harry.

"Don't ever say that." He hissed. He addressed the crowd. "Ahaha…ha…ha… what larks Harry! Just making a little joke there. He's always messing around, aren't you mate." He slapped Harry unnecessarily hard on the back and whipped out a photo. He showed it to the throng. "See, my family is not ginger!"

The picture was the old one from the Daily Prophet, in black and white except where Ron had scribbled vaguely hair-shaped yellow bits around his family's heads. The twins looked rather surly, as Ron had done them matching beehives. Harry raised his eyebrows skeptically as Ginny walked past, drinking a milkshake and minding her own business. The sun glinted off her bright red hair.

"Isn't that your sister?" Said an anonymous voice from the crowd, and they all turned to stare at her.

"What?" She said.

Ron panicked. "Oh, ahh, you see, she's not really… LOOK! A BEAR!" he suddenly shouted pointing in the opposite direction. The crowd looked around and he wildly shot a spell at Ginny who screamed. Pink, frothy liquid splattered out of the cup as the drink exploded on the lawn. The crowd looked back. "See! See! She's a natural brunette!" Ron screamed.

Ginny was standing there looking mortified. Her hair was not brown; in fact it was gone. The sun glinted off her baldy head. She burst into tears. Harry grabbed a hat from a passing second year and rammed it on her head. "Off you go, off you go, quickly go and hide somewhere." He said, ushering her away. "Now, Ron. I'm not going to tell you again. Get off. The bench." Ron's eyes began to water.

"Don't make me, Harry!" He said. "I won't go back there!"

"Back where?"

"THERE!!"

"For Christ's sakes Ron there is no there! Get off the damn bench!" Harry screamed, quickly losing his rag.

"NO!"

"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS."

A beam of light shot out of Harry's wand and Ron froze in mid-shriek. He keeled off the bench backwards with a thud and Harry summoned a wheelbarrow from the corner of the courtyard. He dumped Ron into it and wheeled him away shouting "Shows over folks, move along, move along."

As the crowd dispersed, moaning that it was just getting good, Harry parked the wheelbarrow in a fairly deserted corridor. "Ron, I know this is hard for you to accept and I'm sorry I had to hex you." He said, dragging some benches across the corridor and propping a sign on them saying "Keep out for you own safety". Ron's eyes flickered angrily. Well. It may have been angrily, there weren't many indications to go by, what with being paralyzed and all.

Harry paused and shook his head. "Now don't look at me like that, it's for your own good." Ron's eyes flickered frantically. Harry finished his safety precautions and went over to the wheelbarrow. He removed the wig from Ron's head and held it aloft, his wand pointed at it. Ron's eyes were spinning so fast they were a blur.

Harry nodded in a kindly manner and promptly set fire to the wig. He dropped it on the floor as unpleasant black smoke rose from the smoldering pile of acrylic. He then unfroze Ron.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Ron screamed, falling on the once-blond mound of plastic. "The burning is LOVE." He sat up and looked at Harry with tears streaming down his face. Bits of the blackened acrylic were welded to his clothes and skin. Harry looked worried.

"Erm. Maybe we should get Madame Pomfrey to get that off…" He said.

"What's the point? What's the point? Whatsthepointwhatsthepointwhatsthepoint?" Ron sobbed.

"Well… because it's burnt to your skin. Which I'm assuming isn't good for you"

"I don't care!"

"Come on now Ron, don't be silly."

"You!" Through watery eyes he focused on Harry's face. "You burnt my wig! You wig burner!" Snot dribbled attractively down his face.

"Sorry Ron. I didn't think it would make you cry." Harry said, starting to feel a bit guilty. He looked down at his friend's pathetic state and awkwardly patted him on the head. He then wiped his hand on his robes.

Ron threw himself around Harry's legs. "Oh Harry! I know it wasn't your fault! I forgive you!"

"But it was my fault. I set it on fire."

"I know it was for the best." He scrambled up and clung on around Harry's neck.

"Erm, thanks but can you get off please?" He tried to prize Ron's arms from around his neck without much luck. People were starting to ignore the sign and filter through into the corridor. They all slowed down to watch the strange scene. Not unlike traffic going past a horrific accident. Why is that? Harry's face began to flush with embarrassment.

"I love you Harry! You're the best friend a guy could have!" Ron cried.

Harry began to panic, practically wrenching Ron's arms from their sockets in his haste to get free. The crowd was actively laughing at them now, pointing and sniggering. "Please don't make me kill you." Harry said through gritted teeth, hastily ushering Ron away.

"You would never kill anyone Harry! Your heart is so noble and true!" Ron looked to his friend in adoration. Harry ignored him and managed to push him all the way up to their dormitory. He performed a spell on the door, locking it up tight, having previously confiscated Ron's wand.

The door handle rattled.

"Harreeeey… Haaaarreeeey…" Ron called through the door. Harry stood flattened against the wall opposite the door and looked at it. "Let me out Harreey…"

"No!"

"You know you want toooo…"

"No! I don't want to! You're scary and weird!" Harry began to sidle away down the stairs and towards the common room.

"Don't leeeeaaave meeee…." Ron's voice faded away and then suddenly there was silence. Harry paused on the stairs. He looked at the door, then down towards the safety of the crowded room below. He looked back at the door.

"Ron?" He said in a small voice. "Ron? Are you there?" He took a step towards the door.

"HELLO." Boomed a voice directly above his left ear. Harry screamed and toppled over, thudding down a few steps on his arse. He covered his head with his arms, squeaking with fear, until he realised that someone was laughing hysterically at him.

He looked up at the wall, where there was a portrait of an old man wheezing with laughter. "That wasn't funny!" He cried, clambering hastily to his feet. The man just laughed. "Oh shut it you." He said, grasping the portrait and shaking it. There was a series of thuds and shouts and when Harry stopped shaking it the old man's head could just about be seen over the edge of the frame. "Young 'uns today!" His muffled voice said.

Harry brushed his hands together and turned back to the door. "Ron?" He called, knocking on the door. "Are you still there?" Harry listened for a moment and slowly drew out his wand. He performed the unlocking spell on the door and gently pushed it open. "Hello?"

He peered in the room, and finding it empty, slammed the door open and screamed for a bit.

"HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET OUT??" He screamed.

-

_Most of the previous chapters have been edited a bit. If you can be arsed, feel free to read the improvedness of them. Don't worry if you can't though, I probably wouldn't :)_


	10. Harry Potter: Well Popular

**-CHAPTER TEN-**

**Harry Potter: Well Popular**

On their way up to bed, a timid Second Year had discovered Harry screaming and shivering in the doorway of his dorm room and alerted the teachers immediately. Madam Pomfrey had successfully managed to sedate Harry and the next morning had pronounced him fit and well enough to leave. So here he was, wandering the halls with a slightly dazed looked about him, wondering where the hell Ron had got to. Thankfully, it was the weekend so there weren't any of those irritatingly demanding classes to attend.

Harry meandered down to the Great Hall where they were serving brunch and sat down on the bench next to Dean, Seamus and company.

"Hi Harry. Feeling better?" Asked Dean kindly.

"Yeah, I suppose I-"

"Didn't ask for your life story mate, a simple 'yes' or 'no' would have done." And with that, Dean went back to his conversation about the best way to cook eggs. Harry sulkily poked at the platter of bacon with a fork. After a few moments though, he got over himself and remembered why he was talking to them. "Guys." He said, preparing himself a bacon sandwich.

"-Are you actually mental? Fried blatantly!"

"Guys?"

"-Scrambled I tell you! Scrambled!"

"Hey?"

"Ome-lette! Ome-lette! Ome-lette!"

"GUYS?"

"WHAAAT??" Dean, Seamus, Gryf, some other guy and Neville screamed at Harry. They glared at him meanly. Harry shrunk away from them.

"Err… You don't happen to, er… haven't seen… Ron… have you… at all?" He trailed off in a small voice, glancing from one angry face to another.

"No." Said Neville shortly.

"So get lost!" Seamus jeered, before turning round to face the group, his back squarely to Harry, blocking him out of the circle.

"Oh… oh okay then." Harry forlornly slunk out of the Great Hall with his sandwich dripping ketchup all along the floor.

Now where to go? Since Ron had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Harry had no idea where he could have gone, and Hogwarts wasn't exactly a garden shed size-wise. He meandered off in the direction of the DADA classroom, taking a bite of his sandwich before realising that actually, he didn't like bacon very much. Harry glared at the sandwich, pulled out the bacon, threw it over his shoulder and ate the bread. A disgusted squeal accompanied the muffled squelch as the discarded meat products hit something springy. Harry whirled around and came face to face with none other than Hermione, bacon just visible in the side of her enormous afro.

"YOU!" He cried.

She looked horrified at his sudden appearance. "YOU!"

"YOU!"

"YOU!"

"YOU!"

"YOU!"

"YOU!"

"YOU!"

"YOUR MUM!"

Hermione looked puzzled. "Yes? What about her?"

Harry shrugged and shuffled his feet. "Um, I dunno. The conversation felt like it needed some variety." Slightly uncomfortable, he looked around the corridor they were in. She was standing by a suit of armour, toolbox open at her feet, with a screwdriver and a packet of Droobles Best Blowing Gum in her hands. She was wearing a utility belt and a miner's helmet was perched precariously in her hair. He looked at her questioningly. "What _are_ you doing?"

Hermione turned bright red and looked around shiftily. "I don't see how that is any of your business!" Several rolls of parchment fell out of her utility belt. Harry saw his own name written on them several times, along with some very complicated looking diagrams. He raised his eyebrows at her. She turned an even brighter red and hurried to pick them up, muttering to herself as she did so. "Well… got nothing to do with… not related at all… jumping to conclusions…" Harry stood with his hands on his hips, watching her disapprovingly and shaking his head.

Once the secret plans had been retrieved and stowed safely in the tool box, Harry shuffled his feet in silence, looking around the corridor awkwardly while Hermione began the huge excavation operation that would be required to remove the abandoned bacon from her hair. Harry coughed. "So… Haven't… Haven't seen Ron around by any chance?"

Hermione clearly just wanted him to go away so she could continue sabotaging the suit of armour. She shook her head. A small owl shot out of her afro, hooting indignantly and ruffling its feathers. "I think that Luna said something about seeing him though."

"Oh okay." Harry stood there for a few more seconds, looking around at the floor and walls.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Er… Can you go away now?"

"Oh right, sorry."

Harry strode purposefully through the corridors, determined that he would go directly to the Ravenclaw common room, find Luna and discover the whereabouts of Ron. Nothing, not even the fact that Luna's crazy eyes were very scary, would stop him in his mission!

...Until he realised that he didn't actually know where the Ravenclaw Common Room was. Which proved to be a slight problem.

He stopped in the middle of the corridor, wildly looking around and whimpering. The rest of the students occupying the narrow hall barged past him, elbows jabbing and shoulders ramming, in the manner of American football players.

"Move it, Potter!"

"Are you blind? There's people walking here."

"Get out the way, knob!"

Harry tugged pitifully on the sleeve of the nearest blue-and-bronze-edged robes. "Where's the Ravenclaw Common Room?" He asked in a small voice. The boy turned around. Harry was alarmed to realise the Ravenclaw was approximately six foot five, fourteen stone and disgruntled. "Uh…" He blinked sheepishly and smoothed down the boys sleeve. "Sorry… Um… got it a little bit creased there… haha… ha…"

The huge boy furrowed his vast brow, picked Harry up by the collar and moved him to the side of the hall, before stomping off flat-footed. Harry slithered down the stone wall and sat scrunched up on the floor. He let out several, wheezy, terrified breaths, before yanking the end of a similar pair of robes. "Can you tell me where the Ravenclaw Common Room is?" He asked.

The girl exchanged a look with her friends before saying sarcastically. "Oh, yeah, sure Potter. I'll tell you where _our_ common room is so you and all your Gryffindor chums can come and invade it." Her friends let out one collective snort of disdain. Harry's face lit up and he clambered off the floor. They all laughed and began to walk off, but Harry leapt in front of her, blocking the hallway. Again.

"Really??" He said earnestly. "You'll tell me?"

She rolled her eyes. "Absolutely, I will, of course! Go to the end of this corridor, turn left, left again, turn right by the suit of armour, keep going for ten feet, then take the second staircase on the left heading down. Keep going, past the statue of Carl the Contagious, and it's the door immediately on your left. The one marked 'Filches Office'. Password's 'I hate Filch. He's a dirty little squib who needs a bath. He's also in love with his cat. Also, he's a woman." The girl and her friends walked off sniggering and chattering amongst themselves.

"Bloody idiot."

"Does he honestly think I'd tell him?"

"He's so backwards."

"Even more backwards than that ginger guy he hangs around with."

"Twat."

"I hope he does what I said…" Their voice faded away as Harry set off, smiling widely.

"THANK YOU!" He said.

After a brief reprise in the hospital wing, a slightly annoyed Harry set back out on his quest.

He had gone exactly where the girls had told him and repeated the password in a loud, clear, unmistakeable voice and after all that, Harry was astonished to come face to face with _Filch_ of all people! He had never been so surprised in his entire life! What on earth was _Filch_ doing in the Ravenclaw Common Room?? Harry didn't really dwell on this thought for too long though. Repeated blows to the head with a broom generally have the power to shift thoughts along in that way.

He had, however, mentioned this astonishment when Madam Pomfrey was removing the bristles from his eyeballs, merely as a way of passing the time. She just stood there, staring at him for a 

full thirty seconds, not quite knowing if he was joking or not. Harry blinked innocently back. Well, he blinked as well as a person can with plant fibres sticking out of their eyes. Anyhow, the long and short of the tale is that Madam Pomfrey ended up explaining to him that the Ravenclaw Common Room in actually situated in one of the towers, not in a small dingy room clearly marked 'Filches Office'.

It took Harry ten minutes to get over the fact that he had been lied to. Lied to by girls!

So, newly discharged from the hospital wing, he set out to find Luna, in order to discover the whereabouts of Ron, the mad and orange. Purely because I am becoming bored, as Harry rounded the corner, he collided coincidentally with Luna herself.

"Oh! Hello! Just the man I was looking for." Harry cried enthusiastically. After picking herself and her belongings off the floor, she surveyed him calmly with her alarmingly crossed eyes. Well, the left eye surveyed him calmly; the other one was currently looking at a statue about five feet to the left of him.

"Hi Harry. How are you?" She said nonchalantly, but spotting a group of other Ravenclaws she held up her index finger. "Excuse me one second." Luna turned to the group who had only just spotted her standing there. She walked up to them, pulling a quill out of her bag as she went. "Hey, you left you quill in History of Magic." She said, stopping in front of a girl who cringed away in fear. The rest of the group were jeering, whispering behind their hands and making crosses with their fingers. "Here you go. I thought you'd need it. We're note-taking in Transfiguration." Luna handed over the quill, which the girl snatched from her hand. The group practically sprinted away, cries of 'What a nutcase!" and "The eyes! The eyes!" fading into the distance.

"So anyway, what can I do for you?" Luna asked, hitching her satchel back onto her shoulder as she turned back to Harry.

Harry began to talk slowly, with large hand gestures, as if he were talking to a small child. "Have. You. Seen. Ron. Anywhere?" He asked, nodding hopefully with a wide and frightening grin.

"Yeah, I saw him near the Great Hall at breakfast." Luna checked her perfectly ordinary watch and sighed. "Sorry, I've got to go. I've got a ton of homework and stuff. I'll see you around, yeah?" She said with a smile, before continuing on her way.

"Okay! Yes! Blibbering Humdingers, of course!" Harry shouted in reply, nodding his head, shooting her a double thumbs up.

Luna looked back at him for a moment with an utterly puzzled expression. "Erm. Alright then… Bye Harry." She walked off, shaking her head.

The grotesque smile didn't leave Harry's face until she was out of sight, whereupon his features drooped with sympathy. He shook his head. "Poor crazy Luna." He sighed. "Totally bonkers. So sad." He stayed in this position of pity for a few moments, before bounding up in a sprightly manner. "Oh well! Onwards and upwards, as they say!"

Harry, standing in the middle of the entrance hall, looked at the giant, extremely heavy double doors to the Great Hall and decided to throw them open in a theatrical manner. Never mind that it normally took at least three of the more burly Seventh Years to open them, or that they were 

made of two foot thick solid oak. Why would anyone think it was a good idea to have doors like that in a school?

Anyhow, Harry launched himself at the doors, hands outstretched, but when his arms stopped moving as they contacted the door, the rest of his body didn't. His puny girl arms weren't strong enough to open them. The theatrical entrance was ruined and he only succeeded in head-butting the door. Harry lay on the floor for a few seconds, stars sparkling in his vision, before shakily clambering to his feet, waving his arms around and going "It's fine! I'm okay!" It was clear that the students milling around the Entrance Hall didn't really care.

Harry waited around in the Entrance Hall for a while, sighing loudly and checking his watch. Well, the place where a watch would have been had he been wearing one. After twenty minutes the Girls Hockey Team entered the Great Hall in order to wait for lunch. As their brawny biceps pushed open the doors, Harry slipped in behind them just before the doors closed. He leapt onto the nearest table and began to scan the room. There was a flash of orange on the other side of the room and Harry began to sprint down the Hufflepuff table, scattering people's belongings and kicking his fellow students in the face.

He army rolled off the table and grabbed the ginger-haired person by the shoulder. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" He yelled.

"I've been right here studying since breakfast! Please don't hurt me, man! Here! Take it! Take it all!" The random guy who was just unfortunate enough to have the same hair colour as Ron, cowered in fright and shoved his bookbag at Harry.

Harry looked mystified for a moment. He slowly released his death grip on the boy's shoulder. "Oh sorry. Though you were someone else. Thanks though." He rummaged through the guy's bag, nodded in a satisfied kind of way and slung it over his shoulder. "Oh, you haven't seen Ron Weasley by any chance? Ginger guy, kinda funny looking, about yay high…" Harry waved his hand around at a height level approximately four feet off the ground. The guy looked impassive. "Err, he's a bit weird? Girls tend to burst into tears at the sight of him. Any of this ringing a bell?" Harry sad hopefully.

"You mean that guy?" The unlucky ginger guy pointed to the teachers table and Harry squinted at it for a bit.

"Yeah that's him. Thanks." He said, striding purposefully towards Ron.

"Um. Can I have my homework back?" Harry stopped and surveyed the guy, who timidly continued talking. "Erm… only… only Professor Snape's really not going to be happy-"

"No."

"Oh. Alright then."

Harry continued his decisive walk up to the teachers table. Ron was seated in the Head's chair, an enormous banner stretching the entire length of the table. He was very slowly writing shaky letters onto the banner with a pink Sharpie, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. "What are you doing?" Harry asked in a stern voice.

Ron didn't look up. He merely said: "Nothing."

"What do you mean 'nothing'?"

"None of your business."

Harry snorted derisively. "Don't be stupid. Everything's my business."

Ron glared at Harry. Harry glared at Ron. Ron broke first. "I'm making a sign." He said.

"A sign for what?" Ron did a couple more flamboyant pen-strokes and then pointed his wand at the finished sign. It hovered, lopsidedly, a few inches above the table. Harry stared at it. "The Anti-Harry Club?" He said eventually. "You've got to be kidding."

Ron began to tremble. "You LOCKED me AWAY." He said, letting the sign drop. He flailed his arms around wildly. "Like it was… it was like… PRISON or something!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "What did you want me to do? You were acting like a crazy person."

Ron trembled some more. "That still doesn't give you the right-!"

"You made a Nazi-esq group against ginger people! Your sister is now bald!" Harry shouted. There was a wail from the back of the hall, accompanied by a large thud as Ginny tried to run out of the room. The thud was her rebounding off the doors.

The two boys glowered at each other for a bit. Lunch came and went. Finally, Harry cracked.

"Come on Ron." He sighed. "Stop being an idiot and let's go and bully some First Years." Harry nodded and smiled encouragingly, before heading off towards the Common Room. He stopped when he realised his side-kick wasn't following. "What are you doing?" He said.

Ron crossed his arms and sniffed. "You can find someone else to boss around, Harry Potter. It's over between us, you hear. OVER."

Silence.

"Fine." Said Harry icily.

"Fine" Replied Ron.

"Good."

"Yeah.

"That's settled then."

"Right."

Harry spun on his heel and marched towards Ron's doppelganger. He stopped and loomed menacingly over the unfortunate ginger guy. "What's your name?" He demanded.

The guy looked wildly around the room, but seeing no chance of escape he simply muttered; "Paul."

"Not anymore." Harry slung his bags at the guy and looked up at the top table. "Come on, NEW RON. Let's go and play CHESS." Harry looked pointedly at Ron and stomped out of the Great Hall, New Ron trailing miserably in his wake.

There was a moment of total quiet, as everyone had stopped to watch the fight. There was a brief scuffle as Harry struggled with the doors, but the Girls Hockey Team quickly sorted it out. The only sound was the echo of the doors as they slammed shut.

Ron fell to his knees, tears glistening in his eyes.

"WHHYYY??"

-


End file.
